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SOOOOOOOO WONDERFUL. And fabulous. And horrible. And fabulously awesome, and I wonder how long it will take me to recover enough that I stop screaming in joy and bursting into tears at odd moments. So good. So joyful and full of amazing moments. I was crying and laughing and whooping, generally at the same time.

So many moments. So many things I had hoped to see but never thought I would. So many I never would have expected. So many things I was curious about but never expected to be addressed. But were. Quite a few things I definitely did NOT want to happen.

I keep bawling. But it was so wonderful.

Thank you, so much, so very much, Joanne K. Rowling, for such a wonderful gift as is the gift of these books, this world, and these characters. And thank you for the philosophies of love, family, and what’s really important that runs underneath them, and through them. Thank you.

And now, SPOILERS.
Initial impressions, Harry Potter 7 SPOILERS

These are my impressions immediately after having read it, and having paced around for and hour or two to calm down. I haven’t read anything online, or talked to anybody in real life yet (I really am sequestered at the moment).

By SPOILERS, I do mean SPOILERS!!!!!!

SPOILERS!!

Snape/Lily. Yup! Thought so, not much else would have worked, but I didn’t expect it to have gone back that far. She was his chosen love since age 9! WAAAAH! Oh, poor little Sevvy!

Snape vindicated, of course!!! If he had not been, much of everything Rowling had been building on for the whole of the series would have been dashed. Not that I wasn’t worried, esp after that completely horrible year at Hogwarts. But I’m so glad to see I was right, and he was working for the side of good. XDDD
But, but, he barely got to do anything!! Gwah! (Besides being headmaster. Which was SO unexpected. But I didn’t expect a year of completely open British Death Eater-ship, either. Yeek.) But in the end all he got to do was turn tail, and then beg to get back out there to “find Harry Potter”. I was disappointed about his end. :( No chance to betray Voldie in front of his face, only in memory. :(   But for Harry to defend Snape in the final battle, straight to Voldemort and in front of everybody, that was beautiful. And little Albus Severus! Wahhh! (I totally want to huggle him.)

People were dropping like flies!!! WAHHH! Tonks and Lupin!! WAAAAAAAHHH! She’s killed off all my favorite adult characters. The ones I especially loved for fanfic. ;________;

And Fred! Mad-eye! Dobby!
I was glad that at least T and L went together. But poor George. ;_;

But, Neville pulling the sword out of the hat and killing Negini!!! That was SO COOL!!!
And PERCY!! YAY! He wasn’t an insider job like I kindasorta hoped, but YAY away.

And the Ravenclaw Tower! (I would die, riddles for passwords. I’m terrible at riddles. But it was very cool.) And the Grey Lady and the Bloody Baron! The Malfoy Manor! And breaking into Gringotts!! Luna-ness! And Ollivander! So fabulous! So much coolness going around all over.

And the ENTIRE DA!!!!! All the Order! Just showing up! I cheered so hard.

And so much Dumbledore background. Wow, heartwrenching. And GRINDELWALD. Never expected to hear the story. So glad to.
Yup, Harry=Horcrux. Great way to find out what the villain was doing without leaving pov. I liked it. And he was finally valuing Occlumency!

The R/H kiss!!! That was great. And Ron’s defeating the locket. And SOMEONE finally thinking of the CoS!! Ron imitating Parseltongue! It was brilliant!

Kreacher! Wow, how far kindness and respect will get you. That was wonderful.
I was so glad Harry didn’t actually get the chance to betray the goblin, because that was a horrible plan. And that he didn’t choose the Hallows. Of course they were messed up!  (Why were they called Hallows anyway? Sacred Items of Death?)

Makani being right about the Malfoys! XD That was cool.

Yay for using Wizarding Fairytales!

I really want to know who got the “unexpected reprieve”. And who didn’t.

Snape’s Patronus, and how he used it. Oh, wowowow. Harry to Lupin about parents leaving their children. wowowowow.

And Harry realizing his similarities to the abandoned boys, Snape and Tom. Wow. (Snape should have realized that, so much eariler, Gah, his blindness to Harry’s similarities and his reflected James-hate made me SO MAD in so many of the books. Snape never did anything decent to Harry’s face. And thats my biggest pity.)

The VERY END!!! wheeeeeeeee!!!!!
I wanted MORE details. But the very very important ones were there. YAY for the families and the kids!!

So much fabulous stuff!!!!

Okay, I think I’m done for now. I’m going to go watch a completely unrelated Netflix so hopefully I can calm down enough to get some sleep tonight.

I will reemerge into the world after I have read the tale that Rowling has wrought.

Then I will put forward my thoughts and scour for the thoughts of others.
And I hope to be as happy with the entirety of Harry’s saga as I am with its parts.

I’m very excited.

Unexpected friend connections got Sis and I in to see the 9pm employee showing at the movie theater tonight.

Total fun. Emo Parker and a DANCE NUMBER. I was laughing all over.

It looked to be all dark and scary, but they broke it up with cute goof and heartwarming stuff. Tobey just wasn’t convincing emo evil at all. Even Venom-boy so enjoyed his conniving mayhem, you can’t dislike him.

Highly recommend Spider Man 3! Great fun, great moments, and great action. And the lol emo factor.

Went to Animematsuri last weekend. Couldn’t get off work so I didn’t bother with a table, and this is the first con I DIDN’T cosplay for. Shock!

The con had problems: too long lines, half the panels not happening, blah blah blah, but 4 of my prints in the art show sold. XD Friday wasn’t even worth going to. So many people, and nothing to do but look at each other and shop. I paid $40 for this?
I think I’m going to start getting a table for Saturday only and doing it that way on these cons. Because I love face painting. :)

I’m totally going to make an Avatar:Princess Ursa/Zuko’s Mom cosplay for whatever con I go to next. And for long term planning: I want to do Sesshoumaru’s mother from the Inuyasha manga. But that will be an EXPENSIVE costume, so I’m going to take it slow. And maybe commission the wig, or something.

Am I going to end up being “That Guy’s Mom” for every cosplay I do from now on? yeeig. Cute ingenue and slinky sex-vixen just don’t work with my body, so elegant matron it will have to be. heh.

Art!:

Blonde Fairy

(I would have called it “Green Fairy”, but that has connotations that would disappoint any googlers.) ;]

Last Thursday I went with my best friend Junebug and her sister to see WICKED in Houston.
Oh, so fabulous. XDDDD  DeFYing GRAVITY!

After hearing about it all over livej, I picked up a copy of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” last week. I usually avoid anything of the “Teen Vampire Romance” genre (3 novels of Amelia Atwater Rhodes’ Mary Sue glorifications having finally pushed me over the edge of disgust with anything with the word ‘vampire’ in it), but all the fangirling and some very warm recommendations got me curious. After visiting Stephenie Meyer’s website and discovering that she is an LDS mom who graduated from BYU (whoohoo!), that she also pays warm and friendly attention to her fanbase, and is a-round adorable and fabulous, I just had to read it.

Bella, awkward, shy, angsty and depressive, is a very sympathetic character midst all the angst and I quite love her. Edward, as I expected, is too perfect, and I wasn’t entirely convinced as to why he would fall in love with Bella, (me being one who has lost all credulity when it comes to beings with an almost incontrollable urge eat something ever being able to be sexually or romantically attracted to that thing, and also being one who doesn’t find wanting to be eaten a turn on. :} ) We WANT Edward to fall in love with her, however, and he does everything to show that he is in love, so, like with all happy shippy fanfiction, we go with it.

The Cullens rock in general, Alice in particular, and I want more of all of their characters. Twilight is wonderfully written, a fun, enjoyable ride, with many scenes that fill my heart with girly glee. At the end I felt it was great stuff, but not fandom (or fangirl) inducing to myself. I had had plenty of spoiler warnings about the 2nd book from a friend who despises it, so I was going to wait for the library copy to become available before I would read New Moon.

After two days I caved and went out and bought it.

Yep, I’ve been caught.

Having been so warned and spoiled about most of the plot of New Moon (reading the 3rd book summary teaser spoils one of the major mysteries of book 2), I was able to take its turns in stride and actually enjoy it. It is quite wonderful. After reading through all the online info available about why Stephenie did what she did, I think the major plot weakness of the book was…[New Moon SPOILERS]

…Bella’s “hallucinations”. I understand what Stephenie was doing, and how she needed to get Bella to be reckless enough to do the cliff thing, to bring about the Romeo and Juliet thing with Edward in Italy (Aro is fabulo, btw), and that she tried to make it clear that even Bella knew the entire time that what she was hearing wasn’t real, but this is a FANTASY NOVEL. A fantasy novel where it is already established that Edward, et al, have special powers. And Edward’s are mental.

In fantasy novels, “hallucinations” are never just “hallucinations”. And you can’t expect your audience to accept that it ISN’T really Edward, when we have no good reason to think otherwise.  Perhaps if we were also seeing Edward’s pov every once in a while, and he definitely wasn’t speaking telepathically with Bella, we could accept that she was actually just making it all up in her subconscious. But it’s in Bella’s pov, and romantic fantasy readers will always know that the “hallucination”/”dream”/”freaky weird magic thing” that the main character doesn’t believe in is actually true.

This is the same reason why flowery metaphorical language has to be avoided in fantasy fiction. “His fiery green orbs seared her soul with their passion” can work in a romance novel set in some semblance of the ‘real world’, but in a fantasy, his eyes very well could be green balls of fire. Writers, don’t do that. Don’t even try. (Okay, I’ve read maybe ONE thing where metaphorical language worked in a fantasy novel, and it was brilliant, but it’s extremely hard to do well.)

It would have been better if some other device got Bella doing the reckless things, even if it was just her need to feel alive again, which was the the whole root of it anyway. (I LOL ADORE the scene where she watches a zombie movie and realizes which characters she resembles. Total crack up. XDD)

Speaking as a human girl: as beautiful and wonderful as Edward and the Cullens are, being with them happily and comfortably requires being a vampire. And this type of vampirism, with constant resisting and “soymilk and tofu” diet required to be a decent person, is just too much work to be appealing. No, give me JACOB and his yummy werewolf boys ANY DAY. Yum yum, yummity yum.

/end spoilers

So, after reading the first two books everyone, head over to Stephenie’s website and read the 4 fabulous chapters she has up from other characters’ pov’s, including 2 in Edward’s point of view. They are WONDERFUL and make everything that mysterious pretty boy does make so much more sense. Generally I wouldn’t go for it, but I’m really looking forward to reading her version of Twilight in Edward’s pov, Midnight Sun. He’s hard to understand, and just chapter 1 made everything click just so much more.

ANYways. Yup, I’m a total fangirl. I happily await everything you write in the future, Stephenie! ^__^

I have this painting of Edward IN my HEAD that I’ve been trying to get out and it’s not coming. GWAH!!!

Since I didn’t post one on the new year:

Accomplishments of last year, Goals for the new:

Accomplishments of my 26th year:
– Graduated from College! Got my BA in Visual Arts from Brigham Young University, with a Minor in Music. (Course, I still haven’t received my diploma. I need to start bugging people.)

– Worked a job all year that required getting up at 4:13am, a 20-40 min commute to and from in Houston traffic, and a 6 week block of 12 hours a day, 7 days a week overtime.

– Purchased (at end of 25) and paid off a car.

– Purchased my first me-only-mine computer.

– Stepped foot out of the United States. It was only 5 blocks into Mexico, but, hey! it was outside the US!

– Got my first art related and real job designing advertisements for the local paper. Yay!

– Started off strong on a fancomic that will be skill enhancing and a whole lot of fun.

My nonaccomplishments were gaining weight, a several-month-long art block and minor depression, missing most of the anime cons I wanted to work at, and reading a whole heckalot of fanfiction and novels (fun, if not always healthy).

Goals for my 27th:

– Work my graphic design job and get (really) good at it.

– Lose weight and exercise. (the Ever-goal)

– Continue fancomic, get good at it and FASTER. Start on my Purple comic again.

– Begin my journey in learning to PAINT. To really paint. Digitally, or whatever, I aspire to be able to paint like the masters. It’s gonna take a lot of work.

– Develop my voice more, put together and actually perform the Recital my friend Junebug and I have been planning for several months now. (I = soprano, she = alto, it will rock.)

– I’d like to get into a serious relationship with a guy. A man. Really. I’ve never done that before, and I have always wanted to. :P Yes, internets, I have never even been kissed.
(I’ve held a guy’s hand! But I was only humoring him on a date, and I wasn’t really interested. geh.)

_____________

Reccommend something shoujo to me, please! I have a great desire to watch something cute, pretty, girly, and romantic, most likely aimed at the 11 to 15 crowd. Magical girl very welcome.
I’ve already watched PGSM, Fancy Lala, Yes!Pretty Cure 5, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Petite Princess Yucie, Venus verses Virus, and of course, Princess Tutu recently enough, and I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten. Anything else running out there?

It arrived yesterday.

Merimask made this Kohaku mask for me. Happy BIRTHDAY to me! More pics in her entry for it here.

A few weeks ago, Merimask asked me if I wanted to barter: a painting by me of Sesshoumaru for one of her leather masks. She makes the most gorgeous masks.
I said “HECK YEAH!” and before I could start on my half, she’d finished this beautiful mask and sent it to me. ^__^

I finished the painting today, hopefully I can manage to scan it tomorrow. It’s bigger then the scanner.

(For the curious, that’s my bedroom wall, and the prints are paintings by Kinuko Craft, Mucha, and Waterhouse. :)
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The pretty Kohaku on my wall inspired me to finish one of my fanart100 pieces I’ve had sitting on my harddrive waiting to be colored for over a year.

Thunder.

You would think it would be easy to find reference pics of people with under-lit faces, and of models striding forward. But when you try to search for them, they’re almost impossible to find! Gwah! I must be using the wrong search words.

I found some, but it took longer then I wanted. XP

—Dogwood Blossoms, Inuyasha Fancomic, Chapter 2, p. 1-7, posted: here

I still have comments to answer, sorry peoples.

Those PE exchanges:

Western Themed Lightning Round, for Ylla. We figured out that the last time I drew Ylla for Ylla was 6 years ago for a Christmas exchange. Ah, nostalgia.

Don’t Look Down!
Rd. 50 for Myre. I had fun with her characters. XD Completely psCS: sketched, inked, and colored, which is an accomplishment. ^_^

Noein. Noein, Noein, noein, noein, noein, noein,noein,noein,noein! (Don’t read the wiki, you’ll spoil yourself rotten. Like I have.)

I’m on episode 15, and it is so wonderful Fabulous Wonderful loveLOVElove.

Quantum physics, and obsessive transdimensional timewarping love. Wack ugly chara designs, wild awesome fights with choral soundtracks (yes!), mindbending juxtapositions of bizarre scifi action and sweet home-town childhood life. LOVE, so much LOVE.

And of course, I’m a shipper. Yuu is such an everlasting angst-muffin.

WHOO! NOEIN!!